The cruise sector will be under increasing pressure to fill capacity unless consumers start considering a holiday at sea as on a par with regular land-based holidays, a senior industry executive in the UK was quoted as saying.
Royal Caribbean International sales director Ben Bouldin issued the warning just days before taking trade partners to the shipyard in Germany where the line’s three new ships are being built, according to a daily news bulletin of Travel Weekly.
“Over the last few years the industry has struggled to grow the [UK] cruise market beyond 1.7 million people. This has to change if every line is to fulfill its aspirations – Royal Caribbean included – or else we’ll be really up against it.”
Industry challenges do not seem to be limited to the UK alone, however.
The combined 2013 net profits of Carnival Corp & plc and Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd (RCCL), parent company of Royal Caribbean International, were only slightly higher than the figure they reached in 2003 and down by almost half from the peak year 2007, according to Odo Maritime Research report on the cruise industry.
The total number of passengers the two groups carried was 77% higher in 2013 compared to 2003 and the two majors control about two thirds of all berths in the industry.
Norwegian Cruise Line, the industry’s number three, achieved net yields in 2013 that exceeded those it reached any time in the 10 year review period, while both Carnival group and RCCL still had not caught up with pre-crisis levels, the figures gathered by Odo Maritime Research show.
Royal Caribbean International is preparing to launch Quantum of the Seas in November, followed by sister ship Anthem of the Seas in spring 2015. The last named vessel will replace Independence of the Seas as the line’s principal ship in the UK next year
The line claims the two new vessels will begin to “change people’s perceptions of cruising” due to their technical and entertainment advances. But, taking a sideswipe at Princess Cruises, which recently allowed one of its ships to be featured in a reality TV show, Stuart Leven, Royal Caribbean UK director, cautioned.
“Clearly the hardware alone won’t be enough to dispel the myths of cruising, which unfortunately continue to be reconfirmed by others, if we’re to really open up our products to the broader land-based marketplace – the 28.3 million outside of those who cruise regularly,” he was quoted by Travel Weekly as saying.
Leven added: “We’ll be approaching things quite differently. We worked the social space hard during the recent Princess fly-on-the-wall documentary with the message ‘Cruising doesn’t have to be this way!’, and this is really just the start.”
Bouldin said: “Our two new ships will provide holidays like no other and, as such, the strapline we’re using for Anthem is ‘This changes everything’. There is no aspect of our business we are not reviewing to improve for both our trade partners and our consumers.”
